In The Pale Moonlight
by Speranza
Summary: Ralphs' Last Moments on The Island... Read and Review please!


Legal Stuff - This wasn't my book, my characters or anything else like that. Read it and review it please, I'd like to hear what you thought.  
  
In The Pale Moonlight  
  
I was running. I was hiding. I was just trying to stay alive. In what seems like a lifetime my time on the island that we crashed on has gone from good to worse to the worst possible outcome imaginable. I have seen friends murder friends several times, and now, at last, it seems they have turned to me.  
After the rock killed my friend Piggy, Jacks Tribe was ordered to hunt me down and kill me.. this island has slowly revealed a dark and hidden part of his soul. This dark force made him fight for leadership of the group from the moment I was voted chief. The old saying seems to fit particularly well at this time, "How the Mighty have Fallen." I was Chief of the surviving British boys not so long ago, and now I'm cowering in a thicket of Creepers just trying to stay alive. I have been fighting this for so long and now I just want to give up, to surrender.. what could be the harm in quitting?  
It has been just over three hours since I went and got food from Sam n' Eric, that's why I'm here, they told me that none of Jack's scouts look in the thickets and that I should hide there. So far three groups of his scouts have passed me by without so much as a glance in my direction, but every time they go by I can't help thinking that they will hear my heart hammering inside of my chest.  
After waiting for a long time I noticed the effect running for so long was having on me, time meant nothing, food meant nothing, and sleep meant nothing,  
  
I was an animal in its struggle to see the next day. I hardly noticed when I ate, every time I slept it was for mere minutes, the last time I awoke from a few precious moments of sleep I heard a terrific noise. The sound was growing louder and louder with each passing second. My conscious mind couldn't think of what was causing the noise, but then some forgotten, half-conscious, analytical part of my mind thought, "It's a Rock. They are going to use a rock to smash through the Creepers and kill me, just as they killed Piggy."  
From that moment on I was running non-stop. My mind was more alive than it had ever been, but my body was on the verge of collapsing. My lungs were burning and my legs were aching and though I never stopped running I never lost them either. When I could no longer take the pain in my chest I collapsed under an uprooted tree and the new plants that had grown over the opening, for the moment it was a safe haven. I was able to take refuge in that damp plant-made cave for several more hours and was able to hear the conversations of the passing scouts. All at once the wind shifted directions and picked up speed, I caught the scent of things burning and knew that the scouts must be worried about the fire they set. I also knew that at this distance if they were worried about it then I should be too, it was then that I decided, the next time I had an opening I was going to make for the beach at all  
  
costs. There I would hide again and try to stay hidden as long as possible, still hoping that Jack would calm down. Maybe he could still be reasoned with, probably not but it was all I had.  
Hours later, when my first opening came I took it, I ran as quietly and as quickly as I could, but somehow they managed to find out what I was doing. All of the sudden I heard footsteps pounding the ground behind me, never gaining, but never falling behind either. I had miles to go to the beach, and my body was slowing down, I couldn't force it to go on like I had been able to. Suddenly I had to stop running my sides ached so bad that I had to double over and throw up. I don't know whether the vomit was more from fear or fatigue, but I suspected both.  
Suddenly as if no time had passed at all since I had thrown up I was on the beach, completely and utterly breathless. I collapsed onto my stomach and took in quite a few deep, shaky breaths of air before I noticed something different. Instead of seeing the beach stretching on down the coast of the island, a pair of highly polished black leather shoes interrupted my view, and I heard voices, many voices! Men, full- grown men were pulling boats ashore, and they were all dressed in Royal Navy uniforms. After all these months and all these pointless deaths, we were rescued! But I also knew that I would never forget this island, this group of boys, or the Lord of The Flies. 


End file.
